{"title":"The “Rashômon Effect” Effect: Post-Orientalism in the Era of #MeToo","authors":"Robynn J. Stilwell","doi":"10.1080/01411896.2020.1754128","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT In Akira Kurasawa’s classic 1950 film Rashômon, three participants testify to a tribunal about a rape/murder. The rape itself has been elided into the crime of murder in most of the literature—a symptom of patriarchal frames, both Eastern and Western, and both within the film and in the scholarship. Two characters represent female archetypes: the woman Masako is—even in the same tellings—a lady and a seductress; the Medium who channels the testimony of the samurai—a crone figure, androgynous, powerful, and terrifying. Music is at its most manipulative in relationship to these two characters, functioning like narrative magic: a glamor that conceals beneath an appealing surface, or an incantation that summons a ghost. Fumio Hayasaka’s score borrows heavily from an exoticist Franco-Russian depiction of Spanishness from the dance repertoire of the 1910–20s, emphasizing the startling physicality of the two women that may challenge the tale’s misogyny. The unmarked male gaze is perhaps irreparably shattered to modern viewers, particularly in an era sensitized by scandals of powerful men abusing their power over women.","PeriodicalId":42616,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF MUSICOLOGICAL RESEARCH","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4000,"publicationDate":"2020-06-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"JOURNAL OF MUSICOLOGICAL RESEARCH","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/01411896.2020.1754128","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"MUSIC","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
ABSTRACT In Akira Kurasawa’s classic 1950 film Rashômon, three participants testify to a tribunal about a rape/murder. The rape itself has been elided into the crime of murder in most of the literature—a symptom of patriarchal frames, both Eastern and Western, and both within the film and in the scholarship. Two characters represent female archetypes: the woman Masako is—even in the same tellings—a lady and a seductress; the Medium who channels the testimony of the samurai—a crone figure, androgynous, powerful, and terrifying. Music is at its most manipulative in relationship to these two characters, functioning like narrative magic: a glamor that conceals beneath an appealing surface, or an incantation that summons a ghost. Fumio Hayasaka’s score borrows heavily from an exoticist Franco-Russian depiction of Spanishness from the dance repertoire of the 1910–20s, emphasizing the startling physicality of the two women that may challenge the tale’s misogyny. The unmarked male gaze is perhaps irreparably shattered to modern viewers, particularly in an era sensitized by scandals of powerful men abusing their power over women.
期刊介绍:
The Journal of Musicological Research publishes original articles on all aspects of the discipline of music: historical musicology, style and repertory studies, music theory, ethnomusicology, music education, organology, and interdisciplinary studies. Because contemporary music scholarship addresses critical and analytical issues from a multiplicity of viewpoints, the Journal of Musicological Research seeks to present studies from all perspectives, using the full spectrum of methodologies. This variety makes the Journal a place where scholarly approaches can coexist, in all their harmony and occasional discord, and one that is not allied with any particular school or viewpoint.